The Contenders

28 December 2013

Paladin of Souls

Stats

Paladin of Souls
by Lois McMaster Bujold

2004 Hugo
Award Winner

Got it
from: Own it (found it in the $1 bin
at the library)

470 pages

Dowager Royina
Ista, previously cursed and so profoundly grief-stricken as to be marked as mad,
sets out on a religious pilgrimage, intending to right herself in the world
once again. A different kind of madness
ensues.

Bujold does what Bujold does best

The most
compelling aspect of Paladin of Soulsis the part
of science fiction and fantasy that Bujold does so well. Ista is a wonderfully conflicted, funny, and
smart female protagonist who struggles to know her gods and the people around
her in a way that is at once completely foreign and weirdly unsettling, yet
also totes-compelling, human, and eerily familiar.

The
differences between life on Bujold’s Ibran Peninsula and modern life abound,
but are overshadowed by a very intimate and very warm human story. Maybe Bujold’s worlds aren’t as confoundingly
different from our own as a Ringworld
for example, but Bujold brings her readers there in a very different way. Rather than devising spectacular tech or weird
aliens Bujold pulls readers into her worlds by the emotions. To be fair there is some pretty rad stuff
thrown in there too…Chalion is a place where:

direct
experience of any of five capricious gods (and demons) is possible; and

rescue
by hunky, sword-wielding, horseback-riding, sweaty muscle-men is not just
possible, but AS WONDERFUL AS YOU IMAGINE IT TO BE; and

sexytime
is just a little bit unsettling; and

people
will literally chop your gods-damned head off.

Knowing
what we know about Bujold’s skillz in her other Hugo winners (there's a Bujold
Skillz meme in here somewhere...), and considering even just a short list like that, are you
prepared to say you don’t want to read this book?

I really want to love this…

As I do
best, I have jumped into the middle of a Lois McMaster Bujold series. And as has been the case in the past, it
doesn’t seem to matter much. I’d say as
far as my enjoyment of the Hugo’s goes, I’d lump this in with any of Bujold’s
other winners. Which is to say that it
was a pretty damn decent book and I liked a lot about it, but it also wouldn’t
be the first book I recommend to someone wanting to break into the Hugos. Maybe reading them out of order has caused
some problems again, but I don’t think so.
Paladin of Souls
is good as a stand-alone novel.

Paladin of Soulsis
one of just few of what I have come to think of as the Spiritual Hugos in which
dealings with a divine being or matters dealing with spiritual practices take precedence
over other more traditional SF & F elements. I have tended to like these books, but not
really love them and that’s pretty much what’s happened once again. Everything about Paladin of Soulsappeals to me on a conceptual level and I really want to
love every page, but it doesn’t ever elevate itself beyond just the sum of its
parts.

Recommendation

If you
were a fan of Barrayar, this
would be another great read. In fact,
Ista was to me a character very much akin to Cordelia Naismith. If you thought Cordelia was maybe a little
too ultra-confident sometimes, you won’t see that in Ista. However, while she seemed a little more
rounded out as a character, she’s still been lumped the same exact space of my
brain (my brain is just a tiny chest of drawers) and so have the two books. To be clear it’s a good space, but it’s also
the same space as her other books.

There is
also a lot of horseback excitement. Which
is to say that from a strictly level-of-horseback-excitement view, I guess Paladin of Soulsis your clear winner.

HEP SCORE

Universe 3/5

Social/Political
Climate 3/5

Dialogue 4/5

Scientific
Wonders 3/5

Characters
4/5

Overall
17/25

My last
post was October. That is really
bad. As you know I’m all caught up on
the Hugos, but I’m still reviewing the last 10 or so. I’ll be trying to pick up the pace again. Also, I’m trying to finish the first Mouse Guardby David Peterson (a graphic novel) by the end of the year
because my reading list for 2013 is pretty embarrassing and I need to spice it
up at the last minute. Because that will
change everything.

3 comments:

Glad you're writing again Jeremy! I hope your semester was successful. I've been waiting for your review of Paladin, particularly to find out how stand-alone it is. It is one of the 5 books left on my Hugo Challenge (all of which are in that 500-1000 pp range, assuming you count Blackout/All Clear as one book, gasp!). I enjoyed the humor in your review. Now that I'm a hardcore WWEnd participant, many of the reviews there can get pretty dry. Your review was a breath of fresh air! I hope your holidays were good and Happy New Year to you and your family.